Peacock King / SpellCaster / Mystic Defender

[toei]

Peacock King / SpellCaster / Mystic Defender

Covering the 4 games based on the manga Peacock King, of which a few OVAs were released in North America back in the day (there's also a pretty good Toho / Shaw Brothers live action movie available in English). The two Sega entries were released in North America without the license, while the two Famicom adventure / RPG hybrids were fan-translated.

[ommadawnyawn2]

Good article, I didn't know much about the anime or the FC games before.

"as well as hold a charge while moving"

Regarding Mystic Defender. Since you can only jump and not walk around like in Mega Man I think this should be specified?

This is minor but that SMS emulator seems to darken the color output quite a bit, for example pure white should be 255/255/255 or very close to it in RGB on master system. Something to keep in mind for the future maybe.

[KGRAMR]

I got introduced to Mystic Defender by both GameSack and my dad, who played it in his youth. Good, if underrated, early Genesis games.

[toei]

Aug 11, 2018 9:09:38 GMT -5 ommadawnyawn2 said:

Good article, I didn't know much about the anime or the FC games before.

"as well as hold a charge while moving"

Regarding Mystic Defender. Since you can only jump and not walk around like in Mega Man I think this should be specified?

This is minor but that SMS emulator seems to darken the color output quite a bit, for example pure white should be 255/255/255 or very close to it in RGB on master system. Something to keep in mind for the future maybe.

Not sure what you mean? You can both walk and jump around while holding a charge in Mystic Defender. It's in SpellCaster that you can't, which is one of the reasons it's not really useful in that game.

The screenshots should be raw output or something close. Can you give me a specific example or comparison showing the colors should be lighter? If so I'll look into using something else in the future. It's definitely a game with a dark aesthetic, so I can't say I noticed anything wrong with the screens.

[ommadawnyawn2]

Ok I checked it again now, what I mean is it doesn't keep charging up while walking. You have to jump or stand still to get a full charge and then move if you want to be moving while holding a full power charge shot. I think it's worth pointing this quirk out even if it's an improvement to the flow of the game compared to Spellcaster.

Well the MD which also uses an RGB palette only it's more advanced, reaches pure white on real hardware so it would make sense for the SMS to also do it, and other emulators tend to reflect this (so does the wikipedia page on retro system palettes). So it's a more accurate representation.

This vid shows the difference although it's also emulation, you can see how the white is pure white in the adventure segment early on: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-832upAbYxg

[toei]

Hmm, you might be right about the colors. The text looks a bit gray. I'm gonna have to make a few tests when I have some time and see if it only does that with Master System games or what. I used Kega Fusion to grab the screenshots for both Genesis and Master System. I'll also see if I can add a few words specifying that you have to stop moving for the charge to resume.


EDIT - I added the bolded part to this line: "Charging your attack gauge takes about three seconds in your basic state, which can get tedious, as you need to be still for it to fill and getting hit knocks it back down to zero." It conveys the information, and it rhymes! Also made a few more changes here and there make it read better.

[ommadawnyawn2]

Cool, cheers.

[toei]

I didn't go into details about the live-action movie because it wasn't relevant to the games, but it's pretty good too. It's a Hong Kong / Japan co-production (Shaw Brothers and Toho!) and directed by the maker of that crazy Riki-Oh movie. It's got both a Japanese lead character, played by Hiroshi Mikami (who also starred in the Parasite Eve movie among other things) and a Chinese one, played by martial arts expert Yuen Biao who trained with Jackie Chan as a kid. There's a version with English subs out there.

[acidonia]

Mystic Defender some version in stage two the Enemy Sprites have Pink skin and some they have Green skin instead I think this effects both western and Japanese versions too.

[edmonddantes]

I've always wondered: I once saw the back of the box for the Japanese version of (I think) Mystic Defender and one part in English claimed you were fighting Oda Nobunaga. Did that ever happen in the manga or was it just something made up for the game? EDIT:  Nevermind, you answer this question in the article.  I a dumb.

One note, for some reason when the OVAs were put on DVD in the US they were renamed to "Spirit Warrior" (on VHS they were still called Peacock King, and this isn't the only anime that had a weird name change for the DVD release--Curse of the Undead Yoma is another example, the DVD calls it Blood Reign: Curse of the Yoma).

[Snake]

Great write-up! Happy to find out more about the Famicom games in detail. Geez, didn't even know there was a Master System game either. I've been meaning to watch the Peacock King film, starring Yuen Biao. He's quite underrated as an action star. He is certainly at his best when he stars in films with Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan.

[hades]

Really enjoyed reading this, gonna have to try the Famicom translations at some stage. I purchased Spellcaster in 2016 and (unintentionally) played it through in one sitting (Had some previous experience with the game). Loved basically every minute of it, the boat part is probably the only slight dip in quality to me, just because it slows the whole game down. Such variety in the game, Text adventure, action, a simple metroidvania in the pyramid and the hugely surprising shmup finale!